The Pink Turban (short story)

First published in the New Orleans Review, Vol 31, No.1, 2001 pp41-56.

Pink Turban

One evening in 1972, sitting in her courtyard, stirring a large cauldron of boiling lentils, Guddi, with her practiced eye, studied the sun outside. The sun that maneuvered the affairs of the Siwalik Valley then, hasn’t changed much since; but nor has much else.

The sun Guddi was regarding looked very red and pregnant, as if anytime it might plummet like a dead bird into the dark belly of the hills.

“It is almost time,” she announced loudly. “The procession will be here soon. We must hurry, Goonga, else we’ll miss them. The dough still needs to be make. The lentils?” She plucked a plump yellow grain from the cauldron and squeezed it between her thumb and forefinger. “O dear Rabba! The lentils are still raw.”

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